The Great Oscar Baiter

English animator Alison Snowden has directed some wonderful shorts, both with and without her husband and partner, David Fine. Her work is marked by an endearingly simplistic style of animation, a sneakily subversive sense of humor and genuine feelings of affection for her eccentric characters. Snowden has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short three times, winning once. (Another short of hers, George and Rosemary, was also nominated, but for reasons that make sense to someone, only the producer was recognized, not its directors). In case you can’t tell, I typically like Alison Snowden’s work quite a bit. Which is why it pains me to say that today’s film, the 2018 short Animal Behaviour, is absolutely not up to her typical standard. (via IMDb) It isn't as if the short lacked promise. Its setup is honestly pretty funny, if not inspired- a group of animals attending group therapy, with various jokes made about... well, animal behavior. As BoJack Horseman has proven, t...

One of the great things about the shorts categories is discovering all the famous people who are Oscar winners or nominees thanks to their work on them. Did you know that Peter Capaldi is an Oscar winner? Or that Jeff Goldblum and Peter Riegert were nominated for their work on short films? And while Tim Miller might not be as famous as those guys, you’re definitely familiar with his work. He’s the guy who directed the first Deadpool and SHOULD have directed the second if it weren’t for the fact that Ryan Reynolds inexplicably didn’t want Kyle Chandler to be Cable. Why wouldn’t you want Kyle Chandler to be Cable? Why wouldn’t you want Kyle Chandler to be anyone?! Kyle Chandler is the best. But I digress. The point is that Tim Miller (executive producer of Sonic the Hedgehog himself) has an Oscar nomination, for co-writing and producing the 2004 short film, Gopher Broke. (via Wikipedia) We've discussed this before, but the way the Academy determines who gets nominated for short fil...

Pixar has made a name for itself by tugging at the heartstrings of kids and adults alike, both in their features and shorts. This mindset has extended to their SparkShorts program, which has allowed Pixar’s artists to explore more mature themes while also deviating from the house style. Last year’s Out (which was surprisingly snubbed by the Academy!) was one such film And the year before, this program saw better success with Rosana Sullivan’s Kitbull. (via Wikipedia) I don't know about you, but I love stories about unlikely animal friendships. Did you ever hear about the snake who befriended a mouse he was supposed to eat? I don't care who you are, that shit's adorable. Anyway, if that sort of story is your thing than Kitbull will be right up your alley. It tells the story of a stray kitten who wanders into a rundown backyard populated by a lonely pit bull. The two have a strained relationship at first (the pit bull is very enthusiastic, but the kitten is skittish and eas...

Of all the arthouse filmmakers working today, few are as controversial as Danish director Lars von Trier. I have seen absolutely none of his films and have absolutely nothing interesting to say about him, except for the odd bit of Oscar trivia that is the fact that his only Academy Award nomination is for Dancer in the Dark; he was nominated for Best Original Song. Now you may be wondering what Lars von Trier has to do with today’s short. The answer is- absolutely nothing. However, I felt it was important to clarify that the version of The House That Jack Built which we are discussing today is NOT the artsy exploitation film starring Matt Dillon (also a strange Oscar nominee, receiving a Best Supporting actor nod for his objectively terrible performance in Crash ), but a cute animated short released in 1967 by our friends at the National Film Board of Canada. That is NOT a mistake you want to make.  (via The National Film Board of Canada) Forgive me for my oh-so-original tangent....

Unless you’re fluent in the language, there’s always going to be a barrier in watching foreign films. Whether it’s a cultural barrier or an issue with the translation, there will always be some context missing which you need to compensate for. Take, for example, Ousmane Sembene’s La Noire De… When released in English speaking countries, the title was translated to Black Girl; while technically correct, it misses out on a lot of the subtleties implied by the original. Still, most of these differences can be overcome, but it certainly helps when the film has subtitles. That was not the case when I watched Antonello De Leo’s Senza parole for the first time. But I suppose that’s rather fitting in a film all about language difficulties. (via TV Tropes) Released in 1996, Senza parole (translated into English as " Wordless " ) is a short romantic comedy that comes to us from the romantic country of Italy. It tells the story of Celestino (played by a funny and charming Luca Amoro...

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! That’s right folks- It’s Oscar Season! The nominees for the 93rd Academy Awards were announced this morning, and as this is an Oscar blog I thought it would probably be a good idea to cover it. 2020 was an absolutely wild year, and it was no different for Hollywood. Whether or not that will translate to a wild Oscars remains to be seen, but let’s get down to the nominees! (via Wikipedia) Before we start, I have to admit that I did an absolutely terrible job at watching new movies last year. I really have no excuse (most of them were released to streaming), but that's just the way it is. For some reason I have a harder time watching a movie when it's on Netflix than I do when I have to take a bus to go see it in theaters. As such, I have yet to see frontrunners and contenders like Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Minari, The Father, Promising Young Woman or uh... Hillbilly Elegy . I also didn't see First Cow yet, but I have it from N...

By 1952, the Tom and Jerry formula was pretty well established. And after a decade of hijinks (dare I say Tomfoolery?), it ran the risk of growing stale. Perhaps that explains why William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (not to mention producer Fred Quimby, who was the one actually winning the Oscars for these things) decided to shake things up for the duo. Their solution? Planting Tom and Jerry into the Ancien Regime of France by parodying Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers. I’ve certainly heard crazier ideas. But did this one pay off? Let’s find out! (via Wikipedia) Some people say that the more things change, the more they stay the same. That's not always true, but it's certainly the case with Tom and Jerry. At its heart, The Two Mouseketeers isn't that much different from The Little Orphan - Jerry and Nibbles (the titular Mouseketeers) try to steal a table full of food, Tom tries to stop them, chaos ensues. The differences between the two shorts is all in the details, an...